Corbett asks Cedar Rapids residents to 'fall in love' with city

UPDATE: Mayor Ron Corbett, tired of comments he hears about what's wrong with the city, asked an audience of 500 on Wednesday to fall in love with Cedar Rapids.

In the annual mayoral State of the City speech at the Hotel at Kirkwood Center, Corbett singled out a handful of examples - neighborhood presidents, a woman with a plan for murals in the downtown, the creators of networks for entrepreneurs and startup companies and an advocate for a new city animal shelter - of people who have shown a passion and fondness for the city.

“Thankfully, we are the beneficiaries of many love acts from out past,” the mayor said. “Will we squander them or build on them? …

“I love Cedar Rapids, but you expect the mayor to love the community he or she serves,” he said at one point. “Can a mayor have the same expectations of the people (in the community)? … Do you love Cedar Rapids?”

The speech comes just 13 days before a significant vote in Cedar Rapids in which voters are being asked to extend the city's 1-percent local-option sales tax starting on July 1, 2014, for 10 years to provide local money to help build a $375-million flood-protection system on both sides of the river.

The city money is needed, Corbett has said, to convince the federal and state governments to contribute to the system as well.

Corbett, though, made only passing reference to the upcoming vote, and he did so by fitting it into the speech's central theme and by evoking the city's legendary mayor, Don Canney, who died in 2011 at the age of 80.

Corbett recalled the event at the city's Eastern Iowa Airport after Canney's death in which the city named the airport terminal for Canney, who brought the then-new terminal's construction about.

Corbett quoted comments that Canney's son, Kevin, made at the airport naming ceremony when Kevin Canney said, “My father loved Cedar Rapids.”

Corbett then asked, “Can you imagine what Cedar Rapids would be without an airport? The community, through an act of love, gave that asset to be used by everyone in the future. The airport has continued to expand and improve as additional acts of love were pursued for its and our benefit.”

It took two community votes, he noted, before residents approved the bonds to build the terminal. The March 6 vote for flood protection is a second vote, too. The tax extension went down to defeat by a tiny margin on May 3, 2011.

“Could one our acts of love today be building flood protection?” the mayor asked.

The mayor also highlighted the statewide competition to be named one of three Blue Zone Project communities, which will bring the three cities grant funds to help the city and its citizens to become more healthy. Cedar Rapids is among 11 finalists, he noted.

Corbett also updated the audience on the status of the city's flood-recovery building projects: the new library; the new central fire station and new west-side district fire station; the renovated Paramount Theatre; the renovated former federal courthouse, which is the new City Hall; the new animal control shelter; the new public works building; the new riverfront amphitheater; the renovated Ground Transportation Center bus depot; the renovated hotel and renovated U.S. Cellular Center arena attached to it; and the new convention center next door.

He also noted renovations and new post-flood construction at the old City Hall, the Veterans Memorial Building; Legion Arts' CSPS Hall; the National Czech & Slovak Museum & Library; The African American Museum of Iowa; Theatre Cedar Rapids; and the NewBo City Market.

In the update, he announced that U.S. Cellular has agreed to a new, 10-year naming rights deal for the arena and convention center, which will bring in a total of $3.8 million over the period. The current deal with U.S. Cellular brings in $150,000 a year.

Corbett also took the good-news, upbeat nature of a State of the City speech to note that the price on the hotel and arena renovations and the construction of the new convention center is going up significantly.

At last report, the city had estimated that the renovation cost would be about $25 million-plus for a hotel that the city bought from its creditors for $3.2 million in March of 2011. The convention center was first thought to be a $67-million project, though that cost quickly went to $75.6 million after city brought on project manager John Frew and actual design of the building was completed.

On Wednesday, Corbett said the hotel renovation could reach more than $40 million and the Convention Complex - which includes the arena renovation and the new convention center - could reach $85 million

Much of the increased hotel renovation cost, the mayor said, is related to standards that come with having secured the hotel brand of DoubleTree by Hilton.

“It wouldn't cost as much if it were a Ramada,” Corbett has said.